The Michigan Court of Appeals has upheld the 2010 convictions of Rayfield Deangelo Johnson for terrorizing a pregnant woman in Roosevelt Park after he tried to shoplift at a Walmart store, then ran from security guards and jumped into her car.

A three-judge appeals panel found that Johnson, 26, was properly convicted of unarmed robbery, unlawful imprisonment and unlawfully driving away an automobile.

The former Muskegon Heights resident, now a prison inmate, argued that the evidence was insufficient to support his unarmed robbery conviction because he did not complete a larceny. The appeals court disagreed, saying attempted larceny is enough.

Johnson also argued that unlawful imprisonment wasn’t proved because he supposedly didn’t restrain the victim in her car. The appeals court said his conduct – jumping in uninvited, locking the doors, shouting “go, go, go” and telling her he was being chased by someone trying to kill him – was “restraint,” especially because her baby was strapped in the back in a car seat and leaving the car would have meant abandoning her baby.

Finally, Johnson argued that the “unlawful driving away” conviction was unproven because he never had possession of the car and was only in the passenger seat. The appeals court disagreed, saying the law doesn’t require that the defendant personally drive the car.

Johnson on April 22, 2010, ran from security guards working at the Walmart at 3267 Henry after they saw him steal items and hide them under his jacket.

Johnson
ended up dropping the items and running into a nearby
vacant building, where he hid before running into a residential Roosevelt
Park neighborhood.

Johnson ran to a house on Hampden Road, approached a
running vehicle in the driveway and jumped into the passenger’s
seat, police said. A pregnant woman was at the wheel with her 1-year-old
daughter in the back seat.

According to police,
Johnson implied he had a weapon and yelled “Go! Go! Go! They’re trying
to kill me.” The terrified mother, who wouldn’t flee because her baby
daughter was in the car, backed a few feet out of the driveway until a
Norton Shores police cruiser blocked the vehicle.